Women and the Book

This collection of commissioned essays re-evaluates the role of medieval women as readers, authors, and subjects of books, and the depiction of the relationships between women and books in medieval art. The fourteen essays cover such diverse topics as the development of a female audience for books, examinations of illuminations of and for women in books of hours, and how female authors viewed themselves, as well as the manufacture and collection of books and images by women. Dealing specifically with the relationships between women and images, the volume will be of interest to art historians, feminist scholars, and historians alike.